Misfortunes Never Come Singly
by The Hazelnut
Summary: Descriptions of a few events in the history of the Longbottom family. Some of the events are sort of disturbing (hence the PG rating), but nothing you don't know about. Do not read this unless you have finished reading Order of the Phoenix.


**A/N**: This is my first Harry Potter fanfic. I decided to write about the Longbottoms because thinking about them always makes me cry. It's a one- shot, but divided into sections: there were several different events that I wanted to cover. All the descriptions of emotions are based on things I've actually felt, although I assume the emotions would be a lot stronger for the Longbottoms than they were for me. Please review, or as a certain person named Stacey would say, constructively criticize.  
  
**Disclaimer:** If I were JKR, do you really think I'd be posting this stuff on a fanfiction web site?  
  
**Part One  
  
August 29, 1980**  
  
"If you ever need someone to talk to about this," said Dumbledore, "I advise you to go to the Potters. I expect discussing it would benefit all of you."  
  
"Thank you," said Frank Longbottom stiffly, staring at the floor. He didn't want the man who had told him of the awful prediction trying to give him comforting advice, at least not now.  
  
His wife Alice said nothing – she was too busy staring, her face frozen, at the baby wailing in her arms. She was confused. If she thought about the prophecy that might be her son's death sentence, she couldn't breathe, but she couldn't make herself think about anything else. When she finally looked up from Neville, she realized that Dumbledore had Disapparated.  
  
"Do you want to visit the Potters?" Frank asked her.  
  
"I'm too tired to Apparate," said Alice in a monotone. But stirring herself to Apparate to the Potters' home proved unnecessary: Lily Potter, holding her son Harry, appeared with a pop in the Longbottoms' living room, followed a second later by her husband James.  
  
Lily's face was white, and she looked as though she wanted not to have to talk for a while, but she asked Alice quietly, "Are you all right?"  
  
"I don't know," said Alice in a voice barely louder than a whisper.  
  
Lily sat down on the arm of Alice's chair and put an arm around her shoulder, handing Harry to James. James and Frank sat down next to each other on the couch, each occasionally opening his mouth to say something and then closing it again.  
  
"I feel so guilty," said Alice after a while. "I'm scared Neville will be the one the prophecy's talking about, but if it isn't my son, it has to be yours, and that would be almost as bad." Lily nodded, but James didn't respond. He was gazing off into space. Alice wished he would say something.  
  
"They're only a month old," said Frank. "We don't have to worry about it yet. Anyway, there's a chance that whichever one Voldemort chooses might not die."  
  
They were all faintly grateful to Frank for trying to cheer them up, but none of them, even Frank, was remotely happier.  
  
**Part Two  
  
November 1, 1981  
**  
"Alice!" Frank's voice sounded urgent.  
  
"Is anything wrong, Frank?" said Alice, her back to him, as she put on Neville's socks. "I'm getting Neville ready to visit Lily and Harry."  
  
"Lily's dead, Alice. Voldemort killed her and James late last night."  
  
Suddenly Alice's face felt cold and hot at the same time, and she experienced the awful suffocating feeling that overwhelmed her whenever she heard or saw something extremely disturbing. Her thoughts seemed to vanish, leaving behind a useless, incoherent jumble.  
  
"What about Harry?" she managed to ask.  
  
"That's the strange part," said her husband. "Voldemort tried to kill him, too. But somehow he survived, and the curse sort of backfired. Voldemort's lost his power."  
  
"If 'lost his power' is your euphemism for 'died,' Frank, let me recommend that you drop it," said Alice irritably. She immediately felt ashamed of herself, but she couldn't think of anything else to say.  
  
"No, I mean it," said Frank. "He's powerless. There's almost nothing left of him. He's not dead, but he hasn't got a body anymore. Don't ask me to explain that; I don't understand it myself. All I know is that he'll have his work cut out for him if he plans to come back to power."  
  
"Wait," said Alice. "How did Voldemort find the Potters? I thought Sirius was the only one who knew where they were. He can't have _told_ Voldemort where they were hiding, at least not under his own steam."  
  
"That's just what they think he did," said Frank. "But no one's actually asked him, and apparently no one plans to. Even Dumbledore thinks he did it. Supposedly he blew up a street full of Muggles, too."  
  
"There must be some sort of mistake," said Alice slowly. "Sirius wouldn't betray the Potters, would he? Mind you, he's probably the only living person who knows how Voldemort really found out where the Potters were. If no one will back him up when he tells the Ministry he didn't do it, they'll never believe him."  
  
Her mind drifting away from the topic of Sirius Black, Alice thought again of her friends' untimely demise. The thought that Lily and James had been murdered was enough to make her want to scream, run, be sick, do anything that might hold at bay the horror that was closing in on her. And then there was the matter of Harry ...  
  
Voldemort's attempt to kill Harry meant that it was Harry, not Neville, whom he had chosen to mark as his equal and his potential downfall. For a moment, Alice let this thought comfort her, but she immediately felt guilty for being pleased that Lily and James's son was destined to battle with the Dark Lord.  
  
**Part Three  
  
November 24, 1981**  
  
Alice couldn't think.  
  
All sense of who she was, and where she was, had fled her. She was aware of only one thing: the agony that was tearing at every inch of her, burning her flesh. She could feel herself screaming, but the force that was causing her this pain was indifferent to her screams.  
  
She was helpless, dying. The fire that was consuming her would never die down.  
  
**Epilogue  
  
December 25, 1984  
**  
A small boy stood, holding his grandmother's hand, in front of one of the two beds at the end of the hospital ward. He did not want to be there, but his grandmother had insisted he come.  
  
"Mummy?" he said softly. He had never before dared to speak to either of the people in the two end beds, and he was proud of himself for summoning up the courage this time. But the woman in the bed did not answer.  
  
"She doesn't know who you are, dear," said his grandmother gently.  
  
"But she's my mother," said the boy. "She has to know."  
  
"She's – there's something wrong with her mind, Neville," said his grandmother. "I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. She doesn't recognize either of us."  
  
"Does Daddy?" asked the boy, looking at the man in the other bed.  
  
"I'm afraid not, dear."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"It's very complicated. I'll explain it all to you when you're older."  
  
But now the woman in the bed was getting up and walking slowly toward Neville with something clutched in her hand, which was extended towards Neville. He uncertainly reached out his hand for it, and his mother dropped the object in. It was a gum wrapper. 


End file.
